


I Know a Thing About Contrition

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [40]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Molly no longer puts up with Sherlock's shit, Sherlock is protective, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes had an unfortunate tendency to  harm his friends with his unguarded words. It took him a long time to learn that his unthinking words could hurt, and longer still to learn that he didn't want to hurt some people. Sherlock returned from his Year in Hell a remade man. He's getting back into his life, changed as it is. As he is. He's a better man in some ways, but a worse one, too: he's done terrible and necessary things that still give him nightmares.</p><p>But Sherlock is still Sherlock, which is to say, he can still be an unthinking arse: but when someone hurts Molly, he knows exactly how to use his words as weapons. The wonder is that he's learned how to use them to make things better, too.</p><p>But he's still rubbish at swearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know a Thing About Contrition

**Author's Note:**

> The song title is from My Chemical Romance's House of Wolves

Sherlock dumped the cafeteria tray onto the table with ill grace and slumped in one of the two chairs. Molly, finding his sulkiness amusing ( _insufferable,_ Sherlock thought) sat opposite him, took up her coffee and began to sip it.  
  
“We’re wasting time,” Sherlock complained.  
  
“It’s my break. Your tests can wait ten minutes.”  
  
“There’s a killer at large.”  
  
“No there isn’t,” she said, picking up a biscuit.  
  
Sherlock scowled because, no, there wasn’t. A blackmailer, yes, and ten minutes were nothing in the scheme of things, but he hated _waiting_. He hated being _made to wait_.  
  
Molly smiled pleasantly at him. Sherlock glowered back at her. Molly’s smile dimpled into something irritatingly _impish_. He tried to deepen the scowl, but she only laughed and dunked her biscuit in the coffee.  
  
A small part of Sherlock admired her new-found confidence and refusal to let him get away with his old manipulative ways – she really had come along magnificently – but today the larger part of him, the part that had _important work to do_ , was thoroughly pissed off.  
  
It was bad enough that he no longer really intimidated her, but when had she become so damnably _playful_ about it? It was a result of him playing with Collared, probably. No. It had begun further back, when she had helped him fake his death and then kept his secret; been so surprisingly strong in keeping him safe, and by association protecting the three people who meant most to him in this world. And by default had joined their ranks. So, yes, she had earned her insouciance, and she never played this game when she knew it was important, only when she knew his was being demanding for the sake of  being demanding.  
  
Sherlock let out a grumpy _hmph_ and wondered if it had ever been a good thing to let these people, these _friends_ , stop taking him so damned seriously. He _liked_ being taken seriously.  
  
“Don’t be such a grump,” said Molly, pushing the plate with the other biscuit on it towards him, “You’re just sulking because I don’t jump when you say ‘jump’ any more.”  
  
“That’s not…” he began, then stopped. He poked at the biscuit with the spoon from his untouched coffee.  
  
“You know,” she said, and she ducked her head, a little like the Molly she used to be, “You’re still the most amazing man I know. Oh! I mean…” and there she was, tongue-tied, having flummoxed herself, even though Sherlock knew precisely what she meant, “I’m not… I don’t. Like _that_ any more. I was so… but I’m not. I think Greg’s the most. I love him. I love him more than anything and anyone I’ve ever… I just mean, you have an amazing mind.”  
  
Sherlock smiled tightly at her. “Yes, I know. You love Greg. You are over your crush on me. That’s good. Wonderful. We all applaud this development with great relief.”  
  
She pressed her lips together and glared at him. “You still say horrible things, sometimes.”  
  
Sherlock’s frown deepened further and then, almost despite himself, he took a breath and raised his head to look at her properly. “You have rare qualities of your own, Molly. That I am remarkably poor at acknowledging them doesn’t make them less apparent.”  
  
Molly blinked rapidly, her eyes misting alarmingly. “Oh.”  
  
Sherlock rapidly shoved a paper serviette at her. “Don’t.”  
  
Laughing, she took the serviette from him and scrunched it in one hand. “Sherlock, you are so _confusing_.”  
  
Sherlock shrugged. “It’s usually at this point that John calls me a pillock. Or a twat. And, if he’s in a _mood_ , throws something.”  
  
Molly laughed again.  
  
“He has very good aim,” Sherlock confessed, a quick smile appearing at the corners of his mouth, “Even when he’s just woken up. It’s as well my reflexes are so good.”  
  
“Well, good on him,” Molly said.  
  
“Are we done yet?” Sherlock wanted to know, going back to being grumpy, “Lives may not depend on it, but my sanity might.”  
  
“Oh all right, Mr Impatient,” Molly relented, slurping down the last of her coffee and burning her tongue in the process. Sherlock considered apologising for that. Later. If he remembered. If they could just get to the damned lab _now_.  
  
She shoved her chair back from the table to rise, and behind her a man cursed.  
  
“Oh, sorry!” she said hurriedly, turning to make sure she hadn’t actually collided with anyone. She hadn’t, but the young man in the jeans and unwashed shirt she’d almost hit gave her a look that would peel skin.  
  
“Watch what you’re fucking doing,” he snarled, holding the cafeteria coffee mug aloft as though to display the damage done to his shirt.  
  
“Right. Sorry. Yes. Just.” And she swallowed down more babbling.  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake, are you mentally deficient?” The man was elaborately checking his clothes for coffee spills, of which there were none. Well, none newer than the three that were clearly a day old. Sherlock could have told him that.  
  
“I…” Molly pressed her lips into a firm line. “There’s no need to be rude,” she said, “It was an accident. I’ve apologised.”  
  
“ _It was an accident. I apologised_ ,” riposted the young man in a wheedling, nasal, sing-song voice that was infantile and savage.  
  
Molly was more startled than outraged.  
  
A woman from the table behind her said timidly: “It’s okay, baby, she said she was sorry.”  
  
“Fuck sorry,” he snarled, “Fuck you.” He threw the coffee cup at the woman, who flinched and ducked, but too slowly. The cup hit her forehead, cutting the skin, spilling lukewarm coffee down her face.  
  
“Hey!” protested Molly, reaching for the woman, hardly more than a girl really, who was hiding behind her hands, “It’s okay, let me look…”  
  
“And fuck you!” The man grabbed Molly and shoved her away, sending her flying into the table, banging her hip on the corner of it, making her fall in an ungainly, painful heap on the floor.  
  
The man couldn’t say later what exactly had happened next. One minute he was reaching for ‘that bitch’ to take her home instead of staying around for that stupid fucking mother of hers to get out of surgery, the next, he was on his back, pinned to the floor and the wall by six feet of surprisingly strong, skinny ferocity.  
  
Sherlock of course could tell you exactly what had happened. His response had been immediate and swift. In three counts, he 1. grabbed the man by the throat, 2.threw him against the wall and then down to the ground, and 3. was kneeling on his thighs, baring his teeth in the bastard’s face.  
  
Sherlock glanced quickly over his shoulder, checking that Molly wasn’t badly hurt, and then, while security converged on the cafeteria, he leaned close to the bastard’s ear and began to mutter. His voice was barely above a whisper to start with, but it grew, in volume, in vocabulary, in ice cold rage.  
  
Molly picked herself up and went to the woman at the table, who was hiding behind her hands and crying. Molly patted the woman’s hands, checked the slight cut on her face, found serviettes to dab up the spilled coffee, all the while keeping one eye on Sherlock.  
  
Watched him, while Sherlock whispered and then growled and then snarled things into that man’s ear. About the financial difficulties and the trouble with drugs, all read from clothes and a phone and a watch and a wallet. About the thefts and the imminent discovery thereof. About the prostitutes and the violence and the inability to _perform_ without their non-consensual pain – and what would you expect, from a man as stupid and as careless and as worthless and as useless as a man who would attack his young wife and a total stranger.  
  
She watched as, not satisfied with this litany of failure, with the man’s rage and attempts to get to his feet and start a fistfight, Sherlock proceeded to enumerate all of this bastard’s secrets. The illegal dog and rooster fights and the gambling and the grovelling to loan sharks and what he’d sought there and what he’d promised to do ( _to_ and _with_ and _for_ and _on_ people). Sherlock listed every filthy, shameful habit he could deduce; and many of the man’s filthy, shameful thoughts, laid bare. Sherlock spared him nothing.  
  
If Greg had been there, or John, the man might have been punched for hurting Molly. Bones broken, bruises at least. If he’d known that was the option, the man, now a snivelling, snotty, shamed, terrified wreck on the floor, would have taken it. He’d have preferred a beating to this… verbal flaying. To this this skinny, strange man snarling out every filthy secret he’d had, even the ones he tried to keep from himself. He was grateful to see the security guards closing in on them. Desperate for them to take him away from this terrifying, raging man.  
  
Molly watched as Sherlock dismantled the brute – deliberately, crushingly, the way he had once so thoughtlessly dismantled others. Stripped them so thoughtlessly bare. Then, he hadn’t meant to hurt, though he so often did. This time, the hurt was deliberate; cruel, even. It was like Sherlock meant to kill with his words.  
  
“Sherlock? Sherlock.”  
  
A touch on his shoulder made him flinch. He looked up.  
  
“Enough now. Okay? He’s done.”  
  
“You’re hurt,” he said stiffly.  
  
“Just a bruise or two, Sherlock. Really. It’s fine.”  
  
“No,” he grit out. “It’s not.” His eyes took her in. She was shaken, a little sore, but nothing serious. Nothing lasting. But that she wasn’t hurt didn’t matter. _She could have been_. “It’s not all right. He. He. _Dared_.” His jaw was tight. He couldn’t make the words come out.  
  
Sherlock Holmes. _Without words._  
  
And Molly didn’t know what he’d been through, that year he’d been missing, from which he’d so recently returned, mere months ago really, but she knew what he had been prepared to do, prepared to _suffer_ , to protect everyone who mattered. She knew he must have done terrible things while he was Away; that protecting them meant _doing things_ to protect them, because while she was a bit naïve sometimes, she wasn’t _stupid_. She knew he must have done worse for their sakes than tell a violent bully, before witnesses, what a useless arsehole he was. Sherlock must have done and suffered so much more than she would ever know.  
  
“I’m all right, Sherlock,” she said, and without thinking she reached out to touch his face – the skull she had once helped plan to render bloodied and crushed and dead for a greater purpose – “He’s not going to hurt me, or anyone, now. He’s just a…” She flicked a glance at the cowering mess that security was waiting to take away, “What would John call him?” Her hand dropped to pat his shoulder.  
  
Sherlock, hands clenched, looked at the man, pushed away from him so that the guards could haul him away. Sherlock swallowed. “A fuck-knuckling prick-turkey.” At Molly’s look of wide-eyed surprise, he blinked. “Or something equally colourful. John has a much better turn of phrase for that sort of thing than I do.”  
  
Molly’s wide-eyed surprise turned into a snort of laughter. “I think he might be impressed with that one, though.”  
  
A small smile crinkled the edge of his mouth. He held a hand up to her face, but his fingers hovered above her skin. “You’re hurt,” he said again.  
  
“Really, I’m fine,” she gave a nervous, breathy laugh, “Really.” She sobered, reaching to take his hovering fingers in hers. “Truly, Sherlock. I promise you, I’m all right.”  
  
“Yes,” he agreed, not pulling his fingers away, “No need for a doctor. Painkillers, maybe, I’m sure you have some in the lab. There’ll be bruises later.” He shifted his gaze, looking at his hand in hers like it was a surprise to him. He squeezed her fingers gently, then let go.  
  
Molly turned briefly away, to make sure the injured woman was receiving care and to tell the security liaison where to find her, and that she was fine and would do the paperwork, yes, of course, Sherlock would submit his too.  
  
“Come on,” Molly said, “Off to the lab, then. I’ll fill out the incident reports about this… fuck-knuckling prick-turkey,” she giggled, “And you can drop acetone onto tissue samples as much as you like. Then you can buy me dinner.”  
  
He looked like he was going to protest about dinner, but instead, he straightened up his jacket, brushed down his trousers and dragged his fingers through his hair. “I know a place. Call Greg. I’ll ask John along too. You can tell him about my attempts at swearing. He’ll have been at the surgery all day, dealing with hypochondriacs and head colds. He’ll be in the mood for a laugh.”  
  
“Sounds great.” She leaned in to place a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” she said, “For looking after all of us. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been. To do that. To have to do that.”  
  
Sherlock stared at her for a long moment. “You are worth it,” he said softly back, “Every one of you.”  
  
Her face lit up in that lovely smile of hers, and then she deliberately broke the mood by jabbing him in the ribs with a hard finger. “Well come on, then, off to the lab, before you start complaining again.”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I don’t complain.”  
  
“Yes you do.”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
“Is this one of those times that John would call you a pillock again?”  
  
“No. Yes. Probably.”  
  
“Pillock.”  
  
Sherlock sighed.  
  
And then he smiled.  
  
And then he laughed, and Molly laughed with him, and they went back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> The events of dinner are told in [Tell Me I'm a Bad Man](http://archiveofourown.org/works/765581)


End file.
